Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is winning at life these days. She's starred in two blockbuster films, including this month's Mad Max: Fury Road. (Hello, billion-dollar franchise.) She's in a blissfully happy relationship with action star Jason Statham. And as you would expect of a former Victoria's Secret model, she's superhuman gorgeous in person: creamy butterscotch skin; bee-stung lips; thick, dirty-blonde hair gathered into an artfully messy bun. Yes, the girl has it all—and she makes it look easy.

Behind the scenes, though, is a laser-focused 28-year-old who admits to being something of a workaholic. Huntington-Whiteley's secret weapon, it turns out, isn't that flawless face but an always-try-harder ethos—and an innate ability to roll with life's punches. "It's so important to understand your strengths and weaknesses," she says. So for me that means setting goals that are realistic but still aspirational."

It's the kind of life lesson she learned early on. Huntington-Whiteley remembers that as a child, she once came home from school with a bad grade. Her mother scolded her: "Life isn't going to hand you things on a silver platter, so you'd better buck up!" Her mother's brand of tough love gave her the thick skin she needed when she eventually became an actress. She replaced Megan Fox in 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon, becoming an A-list name overnight—and a natural target for critics. "The real stars of movies like that are the control men," she laughs. Still, the film grossed more than a billion dollars and proved its new star could hold her own in a franchise.

This month, Mad Max will hit theaters. Huntington-Whiteley plays Splendid, the fiercely protective wife of a warlord in a postapocalyptic world, opposite Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron. For six months, she was on location in Namibia, waking up at 4:30 a.m. for hair, makeup and a full day of punishing stunts. "You have to be fit and healthy and strong," she says. "Your mind has to be strong, too. Not only for the stunts but also for the number of hours you're spending on-set."

As with the role she won in Transformers, Huntington-Whiteley didn't seek out the Mad Max gig—the director, George Miller, asked her to audition. "I never set out to be an actress," she notes. "I'm always open if something great comes along, but it's not where I see my long-term future."

It's Huntington-Whiteley's ability to walk away from things that don't pique her interest that sets her apart. Her inspirations aren't other actresses but successful entrepreneurs like Jo Malone, the British perfumer. "I love products, clothes, denim and jewelry. I've wanted to design since I was a girl," Huntington-Whiteley says. In 2012, she launched a lingerie collection with the venerable British department store Marks & Spencer. It quickly became the best-selling lingerie line in the history of the company. In the long run, she says, she'd like to work behind the scenes and build a brand. "I don't always want to be the face of everything," she explains. This is the Rosie the world doesn't know: an ambitious businesswoman who has treated each goal as a stepping-stone. "I think you have to take risks in life and scare yourself," she says. "You have to push beyond your comfort zone in order to grow."

Perseverance was another skill she learned from her mother, who urged a 16-year-old Rosie to stop by the modeling agency where she'd worked as an intern. That push landed her an agent and a contract, no small feat for a farm girl from Devon, England.

In the years since, she's found huge success as a model—at 19, she became a Victoria's Secret Angel; at 21, the face of Burberry. But she's never been interested in coasting on her genetic good fortune. "I don't want to surround myself with people who are always telling me, 'You're so great,'" she says. "I want people around me who know that whether they're saying something good or bad to me, it penetrates."

She's found that there's a downside to winning life's looks lottery: "When you're renowned for your physicality, people—not just men—tend to think you couldn't possibly be smart or funny," she says. "I like to think I have a little bit of personality. But I can be shy and nervous to expose myself. This year, I want to be a little freer, not so confounded by what I'm going to say. Most people have lower expectations of me, which is sort of fantastic. Because then the only way to go is up, right?" She laughs.

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